With this in mind, let’s explore how your business can best support working parents this year.
Why Support Working Parents
As a business, it is crucial that you support all of your workers to the best of your ability. But working parents have a daily juggle that can be hard to tackle at times. As the phrase goes, “every little helps”, and the same goes for your support of working parents.
As Ireland continues to enjoy low unemployment, businesses continue to struggle to find the best talent to drive their performance. Irish companies need staff – working parents are a large part of this workforce. Treating them well will ensure you can keep this talent on board and help take your business to new successful heights.
From back-to-work mothers and fathers, to parents who are returning to work after lengthy career breaks to bring up their children, working parents face a host of challenges. Supporting them will help your business to meet its goals and to provide great working opportunities for your staff at the same time.
How Best You Can Support Them
- Entitlements
On the other hand, it is also important that you are aware of these entitlements as a business and what they
mean for staffing and project delivery for your organisation.
Transparency with working parents will build trust between your company and your workforce and ensure that everyone receives what they are entitled to.
- Provide Better Benefits
From added flexible working arrangements, different categories of leave for parents, through to workplace childcare provision, better benefits will mean a happier workforce; better benefits will motivate staff to get the job done.
In 2019, people expect more than ever from your business, ethically and morally often more so than financially; a pay increase can only go so far. By providing these extra benefits, you can actively showcase your committed support for working parents to help them in the juggle of daily parental life.
- Better Staff Networking
As a business, you can lead the way by tasking your HR team to instil better staff networking; coffee mornings or team development activities can help colleagues get to know one another better, learn about colleagues personal and professional commitments, and build a better network of community and trust within the workplace.
Staff networking will give colleagues the chance to understand better the challenges that working parents might face and help staff to help one another through these challenges.
A better office atmosphere will mean a happier workplace and better performance for your business.
Act Now
Your business can and should better support your working parents. With talent acquisition now at sky-high competitive levels in Ireland, your company cannot afford to lose out on valuable skills from the working parent section of the Irish workplace.
By providing the best benefits of your industry, instilling an enhanced community network amongst colleagues and ensuring working parents are aware and maximise their parental entitlements, you can build trust and performance within your organisation – a win-win for everyone!